English Question

I'm very disappointed to read that the prospect of seeing Jessica Ennis wrapped in an England flag and humming along to Jerusalem is going to be denied me.

England absentees include Olympic track cycling champions Victoria Pendleton and Bradley Wiggins, world gymnastics champion Beth Tweddle, and World and European heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis.

England have been hard hit. Wiggins has won seven Olympic medals, three of them gold, and Pendleton was sprint champion in Beijing. In addition to Ennis, athletes who have snubbed Delhi include World 800 metres bronze medallist Jenny Meadows, World junior 100m champion Jodie Williams, Martyn Rooney and Perri Shakes-Drayton, European bronze medallists this month (400m and 400m hurdles), steeplechaser Hattie Dean (fourth in Barcelona), Gemma Simpson (fifth in the 800m there), and Michael Rimmer, currently fifth fastest among men’s two-lap runners in the Commonwealth rankings.

You'd think these athletes would move heaven and earth to be out in India representing their country at the Commonwealth Games, but apparently they won't.

David Cameron in opposition:

Today, the situation is that neither he [Gordon Brown], nor I, nor any Member of the House has the right to vote on hospitals, schools or housing in his constituency or in other parts of Scotland, yet he is able to vote on hospitals, schools and housing in my constituency. We already have two classes of MP.

David Cameron in government:

Cameron says he does not want to create a system where there are two types of MPs. That's why he favours the establishment of a convention, rather than a more rigid system. But he will wait for the outcome of the review, he says.

But don't you see David? There are already two types of MP (or was that just cheap political point scoring against a Scottish PM?).

I have a reply from Dianne Abbott.

I have read your e-mail and I appreciate your interest in my views.

With St George being the patron saint of England it seems reasonable to celebrate this as other Brish isles do as well as other nations. There are numerous ways of doing this such as a national holiday or even having the state fund official St George's Day celebrations, as you have aforementioned; both of which I approve of.

I hope I have addressed your query. If you have any further inquiries, please do not hesitate to e-mail diane4leader@hotmail.co.uk

Many thanks

In addition to the reply already received from Ed Balls.

The following posted with thanks to the author.

Dear Toque,

I am writing in response to your post "Parliament Grows Two New Flagpoles", made on 18 January. I have made some research, and I have reached the conclusion that the BBC article in question is mistaken. Mr Speaker's statement on the matter, made on 16 December 2009 and quoted in the said article, makes reference to "all three flagpoles on the Estate". The Parliamentary Estate is not synonymous with the Palace of Westminster, but includes all the buildings used by the two Houses of Parliament; although the Palace is under the joint custody of the two Houses, the Commons has sole jurisdiction over the buildings owned or leased by that House alone (such as Portcullis House and the Norman Shaw Buildings). Therefore, the Speaker's decision on the flying of flags applied immediately to all Commons buildings except the Palace of Westminster. To return to Mr Speaker's statement, "in the case of the Victoria Tower, agreement would be necessary with the House of Lords".

Apparently, the Lords agreed, because an Early Day Motion tabled on 29 March by Sir Nicholas Winterton notes that "on 6 January 2010, for the first time in the history of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Union Flag was raised permanently above the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster and now remains in place all day and every day throughout the year; further notes that the two additional flag poles located on the Parliamentary Estate at 1 Parliament Street and Portcullis House now also display the Union Flag at all times and have done so since 28 November 2009". This confirms that there is only one flagpole in the Palace of Westminster, namely the one atop the Victoria Tower.

This fact is further confirmed in the reply to a question in the House of Commons on 10 January 2007 about flying the Cross of Saint George: "The St. George Flag is never flown on the parliamentary estate as each building on the Estate only has one flagstaff."

I hope this has resolved any confusion that might exist about the matter at hand.

Michael Gove, referred to yesterday, is the Scotsman in charge of Education in England.

Sunny Hundal has details of a memo leaked yesterday which lists 30 terms Michael Gove wants to ban at the [English] Department for Education.

One of the changes outlined in the memo is this:

Previously the Labour Party (or rather Ed Balls) had decided to replace the word 'England' with the word 'this'. Now the Tories change the word 'England' to the word 'Britain' (and limit their ambitions to being the best in Europe).

David Cameron was questioned on the West Lothian Question yesterday, and true to form the eel in a suit slithered around the question:

Asked about the "West Lothian question", Cameron says the government is holding a review. The Tories went into the election proposing a convention that would stop Scottish MPs voting on England-only laws. Cameron says he does not want to create a system where there are two types of MPs. That's why he favours the establishment of a convention, rather than a more rigid system. But he will wait for the outcome of the review, he says.

He may be leaning towards asking non-English members to observe a self-denying ordinance on English legislation, or perhaps he prefers Malcolm Rifkind's 'elegant' East Lothian Answer.

I had a bit of a set-to with Malcolm Rifkind over his solution, you can read that exchange here. What Rifkind now proposes for England is far less than he once proposed for his native Scotland.

In 1975 Rifkind chaired a Scottish Devolution Policy group to determine how the Conservative Party should respond to the Labour Government's White Paper on Scottish devolution. To cut a long story short, Rifkind decided to counter demands for a bespoke Scottish Parliament and Executive by recommending a system by which an autonomous Scottish Assembly operated as a chamber within the Westminster system.

It is suggested that the Conservative's should propose an Assembly that would be integrated into the work of Westminster and will exercise its functions as part of the British Government.

The executive should remain the Secretary of State for Scotland responsible to Parliament. All purely Scottish legislation should be formally introduced into Parliament and then sent to the Assembly for Second Reading, Committee Stage and Report Stage. The legislation would then return to Westminster which would decide whether to give the Bill its Third Reading and might also have certain powers to amend. Given the full consideration which would have been given by them, it would be hoped that passage through the Lords would involve minimal delay.

If the Assembly declined to give a Second Reading, the Government could either amend to meet the Assembly's objections or withdraw the Bill. In some cases it would be possible to foresee Assembly opposition and consideration could be given to the possibility of United Kingdom legislation that would be solely considered by Parliament. In extreme cases, if the Assembly was being purely and deliberately obstructive, Parliament would, of course, have the legal right to by-pass the Assembly on purely Scottish bills.

Members of the assembly should also have the power to initiate their own legislation. Once it has completed its Stages in the Assembly it would go to Parliament which would have identical powers as with government legislation. The consideration of Scottish legislation in the Assembly should be led by the Secretary of State and his junior Ministers who should have the right to be present and speak during the proceedings of the Assembly. In addition, there should be no objection to the appointment of junior Ministers, including a Minister of State, from the ranks of the Assembly. At present, for example, the Solicitor-General for Scotland is not in either House of Parliament and, accordingly, no new principle would be invoked.

The Assembly should also have the power to summon Scottish Ministers before it or before a Select Committee with power to examine and scrutinise the actions of the Scottish Office.

The above gives you an idea of how an English Grand Committee might operate within the Westminster system. But it also exposes the inadequacy of Rifkind and Clarke's present plans for England. Any future English Grand Committee ought, at the very least, to be able to call UK Government ministers to account; it should have power to scrutinise the actions of the UK Parliament, and; it should contain at least one junior minister from each department of state.

Charlie Elphicke MP, writing on the Blue Blog, heralds the Academies Act.

The new academies promise to make a massive difference to education up and down the land. Could we be seeing the beginning of an education revolution? I look forward to further reforms to give our children the best start in life and help Britain compete on the world stage in the years to come.

The Academies Act is limited in application to England*, so why no mention of England? Instead of saying "up and down the land", why not say "the length and breadth of England"; and instead of "help Britain compete", why not "help England compete"?

What is it about England that these people hate so much?

Michael Gove, Scotsman in charge of English Education, has form.

* The Bill extends to England and Wales but only has application to England. While sections of the Bill do technically extend to Wales, the effect of the provisions will only permit an Academy to be established in England, so it will have no practical impact on, or application to, the organisation of schools in Wales.

Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State at the Department of Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, has decided to merge Sport England and UK Sport to reduce costs. He is also looking at the status of Visit England and English Heritage. Arts Council England is to be spared but it will be required to take on the work of the MLA, who are presently in charge of the Museums, Libraries and Archives of England.

Jeremy Hunt has no power to axe the equivalent organisations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, though I expect that the governments of those countries will have to cut their cloth accordingly once the spending cuts in England impact upon their budgets. But importantly they will have a choice. The Scottish Government will decide whether Scotland requires a national stand alone Arts Council; Wales will decide whether Wales, as a nation in its own right, is best served by its own stand alone Sports Council; and Northern Ireland will decide whether its culture is unique and important enough to warrant a distinct Hertitage body (as a point of interest the Northern Irish Heritage body is less distinct than the equivalents in the rest of the UK because the Northern Irish choose to consider natural and built heritage together under the auspices of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency).

England doesn't get a choice. The UK Government can decide at a whim to abolish the non-departmental English bodies that - in the absence of English government - provide the only tangible institutional recognition of English nationhood. And because the England-only non-departmental bodies fall exclusively under the command of Jeremy Hunt at the DCMS, England at a governmental level exists only at the discretion of Jeremy Hunt. Hunt will take his decisions purely on the grounds of cost, the issues of nationhood and cultural distinctness do not come into play as they do in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. No account will be taken on what is best for the governance of England; our sense of place, nationhood and identity will play second fiddle to the need to drive down the administrative costs of UK PLC.

Under Blair and Brown it was no different, England was adminstered as the rump of the UK rather than governed as a national community with its own distinct needs and policies. Administrative functions were devolved within England to 'regions' that ignored any sense of community, so that regional quangos could deliver UK Government policy in England under the guise of localism or regionalism, dictated to by the centre but without the sort of devolved autonomy provided to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. England was administered under the 'constrained discretion' of the Treasury, with policy dictated on the basis of cost and best delivery of services. For England there is no populism or nationalism, purely marketisation in 'consultation with stakeholders'.

Labour went back on their 2004 decision to abolish the English Tourism Council, recreating Visit England as a stand-alone English body in 2009. There was no national discussion about how England might like to market itself domestically and internationally, nor any public discussion about how England might like to structure its tourism council, this was a purely top-down bureaucratic exercise. Under the Tories English Tourism will hopefully have its regional structure swept away, but I suspect that it may find itself being incorporated back into Visit Britain on the basis of cost rather than what is best for England. A nice option for the cost-cutters in the British Government, but less good for England, and extremely bad for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who presumably do not have the option of consolidating with Visit Britain and must find savings elsewhere.

I thought about patriotism. I wished I had been born early enough to have been called a Little Englander. It was a term of sneering abuse, but I should be delighted to accept it as a description of myself. That little sounds the right note of affection. It is little England I love. And I considered how much I disliked Big Englanders, whom I saw as red-faced, staring, loud-voiced fellows, wanting to go and boss everybody about all over the world, and being surprised and pained and saying 'Bad show!' if some blighters refused to fag for them. They are patriots to a man. I wish their patriotism began at home... - J.B. Priestley

Wales Online carries some interesting comment from Alan Trench in an article titled Why Eurosceptics are not (always) Little Englanders. Trench argues that the Conservative's fresh commitment to the Union, in spite of their continued failure in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, stems from two Tory anxieties:

1. Dissolution of the Union would result in further integration of the Union's constituent parts into the EU
2. Dissolution of the UK would diminish England/Britain's international prestige and influence (no seat of the UN Security Council for England alone).

Mr Trench said the strategy of fighting seats in all parts of the UK had "bombed".

But he is adamant that Euroscepticism within Tory ranks is a key reason why the party remains determined to keep the UK together, despite the failure to advance in Scotland or win any seats in alliance with the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.

He said: "It's one of the things people don't give enough attention to when they are trying to understand the Conservative party... All the evidence is Euroscepticism is one of the defining threads of the modern Conservative party."

During his lecture in Cardiff hosted by the Institute of Welsh Affairs, he said: "I think part of what's going on in this is if you are a serious Eurosceptic you are talking about Britain - the UK - being able to stand for itself on the world stage."

The United Kingdom has a population of more than 62 million, of which England accounts for just over 51 million - significantly less than Germany (81.8 million), France (65.4 million) and Italy (60.2 million), and only just ahead of Spain (46 million).

In other words, without the UK, England would be a midde-sized European nation which happened to have a few nuclear submarines. Would Japan (127.4 million people) see the UK as a peer or a pretender to be a great power?

It is essentially the contrary argument to that laid out by Robin Harris in The Rise of English Nationalism and the Balkanisation of Britain.

I tend to agree with Trench that Eurosceptic thinking is important in the debate over the British Question. The Tories are not 'Little Englanders' in the true sense of the phrase, they are anything but. I would say that the Tories want to keep Britain together because they are 'Big Englanders' or 'Greater Englanders' for whom Britain - or more correctly Westminster - is a device for projecting power and retaining sovereignty. They are what Chris Bryant refers to as the Anglo-British in his 2003 paper "These Englands, or where does devolution leave the English?":

I prefer to associate the Anglo-British not with an Anglocentrism whose epicentre is London, but rather with those in all regions and all classes in England for whom the difference between being English and being British, is, for the most part, unclear, unimportant and/or irrelevant. Many of them would see nothing amiss in the title of Clive Aslet’s Anyone for England? A Search for British Identity (1997). They inhabit an Anglo-British England.

The Anglo-British do not notice when an institution or person associated with England performs a British function. For example, it goes unremarked that the Bank of England is the central bank for all Britain, or that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the primate of the Church of England, crowns the sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Nor do countless references to ‘England’ which should have been to ‘Britain’ grate on the English ear. Walter Bagehot’s famous The English Constitution (1964 [1867]), for example, does not strike the Anglo-British as mistitled. Similarly, it is the 900-year continuity of the parliament at Westminster – originally English, later British – that enables Rebecca Langlands (1999) to speak of the English core of the British state.

The Anglo-Brits are also people who say 'British schools' or 'this country' - instead of 'English schools' or 'England' - when they are talking about Education policy in England; they are people who tolerate the fact that non-English MPs vote on English matters, even though they can see it is undemocratic. The Anglo-British are everywhere but I do think there is a class and age bias. The Anglo-Brits are particularly prevalent amongst the upper classes and the privately educated, and they're also more likely to be older (at least in my experience). However, they're not just confined to England or the upper echelons of society. Scots like Gordon Brown are Anglo-British in their understanding of Britain, which is why he uses an English narrative and English values to try and forment a sense of Britishness. But it's amongst Tories that you find the classic unreconstructed Anglo-Brit, Englishmen for whom the sun never sets, and for whom 1707 and 1801 marked the creation of a new Greater England, a colonial expansion. Yes it was a shame about the Empire, but chin up lads, stiff upper lip and all that...We still have Scotland and part of Ireland, ungrateful bastards though they are. Tally ho! What, what.

It's the Anglo-British 'Big Englanders' - rather than Little Englanders - who oppose an English parliament and a federal Britain. Robert Key is one such Tory:

One thing that is absolutely clear is that we should make every possible attempt to ensure that this House remains the Parliament of England. I do not wish to see any other Parliament established anywhere calling itself an English Parliament. That would be appalling and would go against 1,000 years of our history.

Mark Pritchard is another:

I am afraid I do not support your campaign as I feel it will play into the hands of European federalists by breaking up the United Kingdom, even more than Labour have done already. I think that there would be many in the European Commission and elsewhere on the Continent who would be delighted at seeing the United Kingdom become nothing more than a country of regions - a type of “divide and rule” concept.

I know that the CEP has the best interests of England at heart, but I don’t think that an English Parliament is the way to deliver these interests.

Liam Fox another:

I think our national identity is being stripped away in order to prepare us for being engulfed by those who wish to see Britain merely as a region in a European superstate. I believe our integration has already gone far enough and I will resist any moves to diminish British sovereignty in any way, shape or form.

The Tories prefer to avoid the issue of the EU, and so for this reason it is UKIP politicians who we turn to for an honest description of Eurosceptic Conservative thought on the subject of devolution. The following is taken from a letter from Jeffrey Titford, UKIP MEP and former Tory, again in opposition to an English parliament:

From our point of view, there is little point in establishing an English Parliament, while we remain members of the European Union. In fact, to do so would be to play into the hands of the EU, which is quite happy to see the United Kingdom broken up. We can only enter into sensible debate on this issue, after Britain has left the European Union.

This UKIP view of devolution is embellished by Derek Clark MEP, again in a letter opposing an English parliament:

We see the UK as a sovereign nation independent of the political construction known as the EU but otherwise co-operating with the countries of Europe. I believe that this view is shared by the majority of people in the UK. What is happening is a deliberate destabilizing process by the EU with the active support of both this government and previous ones. As a result all sorts of movements have sprung up in support of one view or another. Frankly the campaign for an English parliament can only help to assist the break up of the UK and further the cause of the EU agenda.

It's not only in the field of politics that the Anglo-British rear their ugly heads. Dave Richards of the English Football Association provides a classic example of Anglo-Brit thinking:

"It's time for a British boss, somebody who understands our passion, belief and commitment. There's no distinction between English and British."

Incredibly Richards made this statement in the context of advocating Martin O'Neill as the next England manager whilst opposing a foreign manager of the England team. For Anglo-Brits the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is simply - England writ large (at least to all English intents and purposes, they are rather more tactful when addressing a Scottish audience). It is the thinking of these people that is the greatest obstacle to English home rule - to them British sovereignty is English sovereignty.

David Cameron is another Anglo-Brit, as Trench notes:

Mr Trench was struck by Mr Cameron's commitment to the union in a December 2007 speech in Edinburgh in which he said in a "choice between constitutional perfection and the preservation of our nation, I choose our United Kingdom".

The academic said: "That was the first time I noticed a Conservative leader come up with a reason to support the union... What he said was the importance of the union was it was part of the UK's wider standing in the world."

The Anglo-Brits have a very whiggish interpretation of Britishness. Devolution is an asymmetry that can be tolerated and explained because sovereignty remains with the Imperial Parliament. In that way the unbroken continuity of English/Anglo-British sovereignty is preserved. Tradition, continuity and incremental progress are more important than democracy. For these Anglo-Brits it would almost be preferrable for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be allowed to whither on the English vine and drop off rather than contemplate a federalism by which Westminster's sovereignty is diminished but an entity named Britain remains. They would internalise the managed decline of Empire by treating Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as colonies - as peripheries to the English centre - rather than undergo a radical re-imagining of the centre that disturbs their narrative.

I don't hold out much hope for a federal Britain. I see the future of Britain as one of 'managed decline' in which Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland claim ever greater powers from Westminster. The only way this will be averted is by the decline of the Big Englander and the rise of the Little Englander. In this respect I think demographics are on England and Britain's side, the youth of Britain being far more comfortable with the multi-national nature of Britain than is the post-war baby-boomer generation.

We Little Englanders do not necessarily view Westminster as a benign force for civillisation and progress; we talk of the Norman Yoke in the same breath as mention of Westminster; we sing Jerusalem instead of God Save the Queen or Land of Hope and Glory; and we view our politicians as corrupt and elitist, and invariably British.

Philip Davies was hassling David Mundell over the West Lothian Question yesterday.

The biggest threat to the United Kingdom comes not from Scotland but from the resentment that people in England feel at the current constitutional settlement. My right hon. Friend and I both stood on a manifesto promise that we would stop Scottish MPs voting on matters in this House that related only to England. When will that happen?

Mundell informed Davies that "This coalition Government, unlike the previous Government, are determined to deal with the issue". It would be interesting to know what discussions on the West Lothian Question Philip Davies has had with his dad, Peter Davies, Mayor of Doncaster. Has the English Democrat mayor ever mentioned the West Lothian Question or made a case for an English parliament? He must be the most high profile English nationalist that doesn't do English nationalism ever.